Rudisill guides dominant WCU swim programs

Staff Photo By Vinny Tennis
West Chester University Swimming Coach Jamie Rudisill with most of his PSAC and NCAA championship trophies at the Graham Natatorium in West Chester on Friday, March 1, 2013.

WESH GOSHEN -- If it seems like the men’s and women’s swim teams at West Chester garner conference championships with the frequency most people celebrate their birthdays, you would not be incorrect.

Head coach Jamie Rudisill’s programs have transformed the four-day Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championships into an annual purple and gold coronation. On the men’s side, WCU’s 2013 title was its 15th straight – which means that the last time the Golden Rams did not reign over the PSAC, Bill Clinton was still in office and Y2K fears were all the rage. The West Chester women’s latest crown was number seven in a row and the 11th of the last 13 years.

“We have the confidence in our training and in our coaches,” said junior Kacie McNichol. “I wouldn’t say we expect to win, but we won’t settle for anything less.”

To the surprise of absolutely no one, WCU is sending yet another large contingent – a dozen swimmers and three divers -- to the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships in Birmingham, Ala., from March 6-9. West Chester’s program is a true juggernaut, now recognized as the premier swimming program in the Northeast -- and Rudisill is at the center of it all.

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“He’s like our biggest fan and he loves when we do well,” said sophomore Kendall Somer.

“Jamie knows what he is doing,” McNichol acknowledged. “He is behind everything.”

Rudisill, 55, came to West Chester a quarter century ago believing it was going to be a relatively brief stop. He now presides over a dynasty that’s produced so many team and individual championships, his cramped office inside Graham Natatorium couldn’t possibly house all of the trophies. And if that wasn’t enough to make WCU the envy of every other PSAC program and beyond, Rudisill raises eye-popping amounts of money to fund his program, and the athletic department, thanks to the largest and most successful seasonal swim lesson program on the East Coast.

“Everything’s working, but it took a decade to get all of that going,” Rudisill pointed out.

“We went 10 years after I got here where we didn’t win (the PSAC Championship) on either (the men’s or women’s) side, but I guess I was just stubborn enough to stay here.”

Like most seemingly overnight sensations, Rudisill’s ascension took many years of hard work and dedication. For instance, his first swim lesson program drew a mere 150 youngsters in 1988. Last year’s participation topped 4,000.

A 1980 graduate of the University of Virginia, Rudisill arrived at West Chester when the school’s once mighty swimming program was trending downward. The men had won 11 of 14 conference crowns and the women had captured the AIAW national championship – but both took place 15 years earlier.

“When I first got here, the facility had been neglected,” Rudisill recalled. “We had to do a lot of cleanup -- but we have 12 swimming lanes, a separate diving facility and another pool on main campus. Nobody had that in Division II.”

And there were other early challenges. By Rudisill’s count, he had seven different bosses over the course of his first eight seasons. Undaunted, he proceeded to build the programs by instituting his own methods of training and fundraising. Along the way, he began assembling and funding a staff of coaches and instructors to help implement it all.

“Early on, I tried to do everything with not much help,” Rudisill admitted. “I ended up doing a lot of things but not one thing as well as I would have liked to. That’s not the case anymore.

“I have the luxury of a great staff and that makes it comfortable. I’m not doing nearly as much stuff as I was 20 years ago. But we are more successful because of that.”

Rudisill initially looked to Clarion’s legendary swim coach Bill Miller (1979-2000) when modeling his program. Twenty-five years later, he is either approaching or surpassing some of the milestones established under Miller. West Chester’s men’s and women’s crowns in 2013 were the 24th and 25th of Rudisill’s career, surpassing Miller’s mark of 24. And at 15 and counting, he is making a run at Clarion’s record 19-year run as PSAC men’s champion.

Under Rudisill, WCU has crowned at least one All-American in each of the last 25 seasons. He’s tutored four female national champions, who have accumulated 16 NCAA titles, and two male national champions, along with three relay championships.

One of the main tenants of success is that Rudisill’s teams go through six months of rigorous training. And that’s why toward very often at the end of the PSAC Championships, when all of the other teams are fatigued, his Rams begin to pull away.

“He’s been doing it for so long, he knows what kind of practices we need and what we don’t need,” said McNichol, a former standout at West Chester Henderson.

“I was talking to some girls from other teams and we practice a lot harder than they do,” added Somer, who starred at Unionville High School. “We are motivated and determined to be the best.”

It certainly helps when you can draw top-notch talent, and that’s where the fundraising advantage kicks in. Last summer, Rudisill estimates that the swim lesson program grossed close to $1 million.

“We’ll give 40,000 lessons in three months,” Rudisill said. “In addition to funding scholarships, that kicks back $50,000 to the athletics department and pays for two full-time assistant coaches. And that makes a huge difference because it’s more individual attention.

“Nobody else in this conference has four assistant coaches that are paid like this. It’s comparable to a staff you would have at a big Division I school.”

And believe it or not, funding and unmatched successes in the pool are not the only reason Rudisill’s been able to lure so many impressive swimmers and divers to WCU.

“It’s not hard to sell West Chester, especially when the economy got bad,” Rudisill explained.

“We are in the best location of all of the schools in our conference. We are still a country town but we are also in the shadow of a major metropolitan area with everything at your fingertips. Plus, we have the best and deepest academic menu in the conference, and the best facility.”

You would think that all of the championships would eventually run together, but Rudisill says that he had more fun during last month’s PSAC’s than he’s had at any in at least 13 years.

“They were loose, not getting in their own way and trying too hard,” he said. “They had already done the hard work and were just letting it flow.”

The end result was that both the men’s and women’s teams reached the 800-point plateau, a milestone WCU last accomplished in 2007.

“It was big for both teams to go over 800 points because it shows we have a lot more depth than we’ve had in the past,” McNichol said.

“I scored the meet out with the seeding times for everybody and I had the women scoring 709 and the men at 731,” Rudisill stated. “So they had a great meet. That was impressive.”

Unlike many programs, the WCU men and women train together. It helps foster healthy competitive workouts, and also promotes the kind of one-for-all camaraderie you rarely see these days from athletic teams at the collegiate level.

“We are one big team. We all hang out together,” McNichol said.

“Some schools separate the practices,” Somer added. “Here, the boys push the girls, and then if the girls beat the boys, they get mad and it gets them motivated. So we push each other. And at meets, we are always together supporting each other.”

According to many of his student-athletes, Rudisill’s coaching style also factors in to all of the successes. He is approachable, yet authoritarian -- and it apparently doesn’t take long for that rare combination to show through.

“I went on some recruiting trips and it felt so awkward. But he’s like my dad,” Somer said. “We can talk to him about stuff outside of swimming. It could be about school, or boyfriends, or whatever.”

A smile envelopes Rudisill’s face when he hears that his swimmers are comfortable enough to approach him, but he also talks about having to play the heavy on occasion.

“We are coaching kids to get faster in a hole in the ground with water in it,” Rudisill says. “If there weren’t a human level, this wouldn’t be worth it.

“They keep me fresh. By the time I’m ready for a break with them, the little kids come in with a real fresh energy for the lessons. And then I am ready to be alone for a month, I do that in August, and then the college kids come back. It keeps me fresh.”

The one thing missing from Rudisill’s stellar resume is an NCAA team championship. His Rams have finished third two times on the men’s side and twice on the women’s side, but have never made a serious run at the national title – and he doesn’t foresee that changing any time soon.

“It would take a quantum leap and I just don’t see it,” he said. “Getting back into the top four on the women’s side could happen as early as next year. But on the men’s side, just getting back into the top-10 for the first time since 2010 would be nice.”

Recent developments nationally, according to Rudisill, have West Chester losing all kinds of ground, particularly on the men’s side. Primarily, there are more and more fully funded programs that are now bringing in a lot of international talent.

“To get back there on the men’s side would take a whole different complexion to the team, and I’m not sure it’s one I would want,” he explained. “Some of the teams up top are almost exclusively international. I don’t want that and I can’t afford that.

“On the women’s side, we could get closer but we would need help from the school like tuition waivers for international kids, and an English-as-a-Second-Language program. We don’t have those.”

But Rudisill doesn’t anticipate much changing at the conference level. He believes that WCU should continue to dominate the PSAC for the foreseeable future. But what if that doesn’t happen?

“I’d like to make it to 30 years,” he said when asked how long he plans to coach at West Chester. “Some parts of the job get old and you start looking toward the end.

“I don’t think I will be doing this when I’m 80. But I want it to be at this level and if things would start to fall off, it would make a big difference how long I stay in it.”